Knowledge is not power in any proximate sense; it would be truer to say that "imagery is power." The entire political situation in Pakistan was recently changed, thanks to a home video of a very young woman being held down and ritually beaten by bearded Taliban, in Swat, for the crime of being in the company of a man not her male guardian. The screams of that girl somehow galvanized a significant part of Pakistani opinion to demand that their government stop retreating.
Likewise, the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan in Tehran -- picked off in the street by a plainclothed gunman of the regime's unspeakable Basiji, and shown to the world by video -- has galvanized the ayatollahs' opponents, everywhere.
Imagery can of course be false; can be staged.
But it is unlikely that either of the scenes I mention above were staged; and they communicate the truth of the situation far more eloquently than yet another speech by the American charlatan.
And for that: thank you, cellphone technology.
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